By Ghulam Yaghma and Salih Hudayar
New Delhi, Feb 25 (SocialNews.XYZ) The International Criminal Court (ICC) has the mandate and jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute China's genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in East Turkistan.
Following the end of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, the Chinese government announced it would allow the UN Human Rights Chief, Michelle Bachelet, to visit East Turkistan, which Beijing refers to as Xinjiang (the new territory).
However, Beijing has made it clear that the visit would be friendly in nature; and sternly opposed any investigation of its ongoing atrocities against the Uyghur and other Turkic peoples in the region.
If the UN does not launch an investigation into China's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity, there will be no deterrence.
In that case, Bachelet's visit to East Turkistan will be no different from the International Red Cross' 1944 visit to Theresienstadt, a ghetto and concentration camp in the Nazi-occupied region of the
former Czechoslovakia, where 33,000 Jews were killed.
Furthermore, we fear that China will use Michelle Bachelet's visit as propaganda to continue carrying out and denying its brutal genocide and crimes against humanity against the people of East
Turkistan.
If the UN is unwilling to investigate, and individual governments and parliaments recognition of China's atrocities against Uyghurs/ Turkic peoples as genocide cannot produce enough pressure to convince the Chinese government to stop, then what can?
Will the world continue to issue symbolic condemnations and recognitions, or will it act to implement its treaty obligations under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide?
These are essential questions that many have been repeated for years but which have not been able to get a concrete answer as we strive to find a way to end this 21st-century genocide and safeguard the very existence of the Uyghur people.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced on 14 November 2019 to open an investigation in Bangladesh and Mvanmar concerning the Rohingya genocide. This significant development gave us an answer to our questions. Due to part of the crimes against the Rohingya occurring in Bangladesh, a signatory to the Rome Statute, the ICC established jurisdiction to investigate crimes perpetrated by the junta of Myanmar.
Over the decades, the Chinese government's ruthless colonisation, genocide, and occupation campaign forced many Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples to flee East Turkistan to countries in Central Asia and Southeast Asia, including some signatories to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. There are numerous known cases of Uyghurs being forcibly deported to China by many countries worldwide and later forcibly disappeared into China's archipelago of concentration camps and prisons.
There have been many cases of Uyghurs being forcibly deported from Tajikistan and Cambodia, both signatories of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, into China and never heard from again.
Relying on the precedent of the Rohingya case, the East Turkistan Government in Exile (ETGE) partnered with the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement (ETNAM) and numerous Uyghur and Kazakh victims in our global diaspora to file the first-ever legal
complaint against Chinese officials at the International Criminal Court.
The first legal submission was made to the ICC on 16 Julv 2020, by a team of British lawyers led by Rodney Dixon QC, on behalf of the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement.
On December 14, 2020, the ICC published its Report on Preliminary Examination Activities 2020 which stated that due
to a lack of available evidence at that stage; the Office determined that there was no basis to proceed at this time.
However, the report also explained that "Since the issuance of its decision, the senders [ETGE and ETNAM] have communicated to the Office a request for reconsideration pursuant article 15(6) on the basis of new facts or evidence. The case is thus being reconsidered by the Office of the Prosecutor in light
of further, new evidence."
In early 2021, investigators working for our legal team were able to travel to Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries to gather further evidence to submit to the ICC.
On June 10, 2021, the legal team submitted a second dossier of evidence to the ICC, which showed a highly organised and systematic plan by the Chinese authorities to round up Uyghurs living in an ICC State Party -- Tajikistan -- and deport them back to
China, where they have been forcibly disappeared.
The evidence shows that over the past 10-15 years, the number of Uyghurs living in Tajikistan has been reduced from an estimated 3,000 to approximately 100 with most Uyghurs being unlawfully arrested in Tajikistan and then deported and forcibly disappeared.
A third dossier of evidence was submitted to the ICC on November 11, 2021 following further on-the-ground investigations and interviews in Kyrgyzstan, which signed the Rome Statute but did not ratify, and other countries. The investigation found an 87 per cent decrease in the East Turkistani Uyghur population in Kyrgyzstan in recent years as a result of forced deportations and disappearances, following the same pattern as the case of Uyghurs in Tajikistan.
The ICC's Office of the Prosecutor has acknowledged receipt of our legal team's further submissions of evidence and are considering them. With the Beijing Olympics have ended and growing international concern on the plight of the Uyghurs, governments across the world must support East Turkistan's case at the International Criminal Court.
In the Rohingya case, numerous governments supported the ICC opening an investigation, and similar calls must be made regarding China's ongoing genocide of Uyghurs/ Turkic peoples in East Turkistan.
If governments are genuine in their vows to Never Again, they must fulfill their treaty obligations to prevent and punish the perpetrators of the greatest humanitarian crisis of our century.
Governments must call on the ICC to start investigations before the UN Human Rights Chief Michele Bachelet's visit to East Turkistan,
Failure to support the Uyghurs legal efforts to end the ongoing genocide and obtain justice will only show that the claims of Never Again; and commitment to human rights and justice are nothing but empty vows.
What's even worse, the lack of an international investigation will only embolden China to continue its brutal attempts to eradicate the Uyghurs.
As Holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel stated, "We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
Governments need to break their silence and voice their support for an international investigation to be carried out regarding China's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghur and other Turkic people of East Turkistan.
(Ghulam Yaghma is a veteran East Turkistani independence leader and President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile. He currently lives in Canada. Salih Hudayar is the Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the Founder of the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement. He is the leading Uyghur voice calling for restoration of East Turkistan's independence)
Source: IANS
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